


when there was doubt

by foxwatson



Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, mostly it's just danny and rusty talking, post-trilogy, sort of vaguely post ocean's 8 but blink and you'll miss it, yes that's right kids it's another danny faked his own death fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxwatson/pseuds/foxwatson
Summary: It’s a stupid story, the one about how Danny Ocean faked his own death. There’s no fun in it really, and absolutely no panache - and besides, there’s nobody to tell it to. Not anymore.
Relationships: Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 104





	when there was doubt

**Author's Note:**

> title credit to the very obvious choice of frank sinatra's my way. i couldn't resist!

It’s a stupid story, the one about how Danny Ocean faked his own death. There’s no fun in it really, and absolutely no panache - and besides, there’s nobody to tell it to. Not anymore.

He did it, really, mostly, just to see if he could. He did it, too, sure, to stop getting Debbie and Tess and everybody in trouble by extension (not that Debbie needs help if all the rumors are true), but mostly he just did it because he wanted to see if he could pull it off.

All it took, though, was a burned out car, some well placed bones, and one handsomely paid morgue official. He’s got enough enemies to spread the blame around, he’s got enough friends to go to the funeral.

He did think about going to his own funeral - but it would have ruined the whole point of getting away with it. If people know, then they know, and he doesn’t pull it off.

Now he’s on some island in the middle of nowhere, living in a place most of his friends would call a shack, he’s pulled it off - but he’s not sure why.

More than once, about four separate times, actually, at four very specific moments in the plan, he thought about calling Rusty.

He’d pick up his phone, hold it in his hand, and scroll through his contacts. His thumb would hover over the touchscreen, and he’d even say out loud to himself, “I should call him.” Then he’d sit there for another ten, twenty, thirty minutes, and he wouldn’t call.

Eventually he’d back out of his contacts, put down his phone, and lie down and stare up at the ceiling.

Then he was dead, and it was too late. He didn’t tell Rusty, and Rusty didn’t know. So now Danny’s sitting on that island in the middle of fucking nowhere, alone, and he ditched his cellphone a long time ago but that’s the one number he still knows by heart. Unless Rusty changed it of course - which he might have. People do.

Danny has a landline now, which, talk about old-fashioned. He sits there next to it sometimes, looking at the phone, muttering the numbers under his breath to make sure he still remembers them. He can’t call Rusty now, though. He should have called him before. Now, Rusty will be sad and upset - or worse, he won’t. Either way, he’s probably moved on or moving on in the sense that he’s doing jobs with other people, or retired on his own somewhere nice.

Really, Danny meant to retire somewhere suburban with Tess, but - he ended up faking his own death instead. Go figure.

He loses track of days easily on the island. Living alone, taking care of the place. He takes a bicycle into town, he picks up groceries, he cooks on his little old-fashioned stove. He keeps a garden out in front. His hair gets a little too long, he doesn’t shave every day, he doesn’t even wear shoes more often than not. He wears light linen shirts with the sleeves rolled up and everybody at the local bar calls him Danny, but they don’t even know his last name.

That’s the one place he goes when he feels cooped up. When he stays in his house too long by himself, when he runs out of books to read or schemes he’ll never pull off - he walks down the beach to the bar and has a drink.

“You know it’s a year now since you started coming in here, Danny,” the bartender tells him one night.

He looks up. Blinks. He can’t remember the last time he really spoke directly to another person like this, without the intention of leaving again as quickly as possible. “A year? Really?” His voice is a little rough. He takes another swig of his scotch and lets it burn and soothe in equal measure.

“Mm. Sure is. Everybody was curious, you know, when somebody bought that little house by the ocean like that. Nobody around here would take this place. Too scared of floods. Hurricanes.”

Danny shrugs. “It was cheap and available. I guess if it gets blown down someday I’ll have to move.”

“Well let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” a voice says behind him.

It’s not the bartender.

Every hair on the back of Danny’s neck stands up.

Rusty Ryan steps up to the bar, right beside Danny, and leans his elbows on the counter. “Could I get a shot of tequila?”

The bartender turns to leave, and Danny makes the fatal mistake of turning to look at Rusty.

His hair’s longer. It suits him, in a way. He’s blonde again, really blonde this time, no spiked frosted tips like the ill-advised early 2000s look he’d sported. He’s got on old, faded ripped jeans that he’s probably owned since the two of them met, and a Hawaiian shirt, probably just to be an asshole.

He turns towards Danny and really leans against the bar, properly, and grins.

It’s not happy, though. Not normal happy. Not Rusty’s so pleased to see him happy - there’s anger in it. Then again, Danny figures he has a right.

“You don’t have to say it. I did-”

“Almost calling’s not the same as calling. And it took me too damn long to find you.”

“Where’d you even start?”

“Your buddy at the morgue, obviously. Only place to start.”

The bartender comes back, slides Rusty the shot, and takes the obvious cue to leave again.

“You know, I’m not gonna say it,” Rusty starts, “But it might be nice-”

“I’m sorry.” Danny tells him. He sets his drink down and turns all the way to face Rusty.

Then Rusty takes the shot, tilts his head back, and downs it. Danny watches the way his Adam's apple moves as he swallows, and then the way he wipes at the corner of his mouth with his thumb - old nervous habit. Doesn’t make it any less distracting.

“Almost sounds like you mean it,” Rusty says. He turns the shot glass upside down, sets it on the counter.

“I do mean it.”

“But not enough to call.”

Danny shrugs.

“I wasn’t that busy,” Rusty answers.

“Did you tell anyone?”

Rusty levels him with a look that could probably kill a lesser man.

“No, of course not. I don’t know why I asked.”

“I guess I should be flattered you almost told me. Even your own sister - even Tess-”

“Especially Tess,” Danny says, more darkly than he means to.

That, more than anything, actually leaves Rusty looking surprised. He waves at the bartender, and gets another shot for his trouble, then throws it back.

“Alright, then. I’m listening.”

Danny takes another drink, then turns to him, eyebrows raised.

“You were bored?” Rusty asks. “Danny I could have pulled a job together-”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t really mean to? I just sort of - I wanted to see if I could do it. And I meant to bring you in. I’d pull you up on the phone and tell myself to call but then I’d just sit there, and before I knew it, I’d done it. And it keeps a lot of people out of trouble, and I’ve got a pretty nice set-up here, so I just - I guess it’s been a year now. You know. And she’s probably fine, and Debbie’s probably fine, and you-”

“What, then? You’re saying I should go?”

“No.” Danny pauses, tilts his glass in his hand, then finishes off the rest of it. “I mean, unless you want to.”

Rusty levels him with a stare again.

“Right, you want to stay the night?”

He taps his shot glass against the bar.

“Of course, yeah, I’ll pull out the couch. As long as you want.”

Only Danny doesn’t go and do it immediately - instead, Rusty has at least three more shots, Danny has a couple of old fashioneds, and Danny foots the bill for the whole thing.

When the two of them go stumbling back down the beach towards Danny’s place, they go together.

“What’d you have to move somewhere so hot for, Danny? Tell me the beach isn’t just for the ocean joke.”

That makes Danny snort out a laugh, and as he stumbles, he nearly takes Rusty down with him. They’re both leaning heavily on each other, neither of them really carrying their own weight as much as the other’s. Each time the sand gives under their feet they stumble and lean a little more, their arms around each other’s shoulders.

“The breeze is nice. The nights aren’t so bad. It’s cooler now. The sun - sun’s a little too much, but that’s pretty rich coming from you in that shirt.”

“The shirt’s definitely a joke,” Rusty tells him.

The fact that Danny knew that back in the bar, knew it well before Rusty said it, even though it’s been a year, makes him laugh again, but this time when he stumbles he does take Rusty with him, and then they both just go tumbling into the sand.

Once upon a time, after a job in Atlantic City, they’d gone down to the beach afterwards, both in their suits, and splashed around in the incoming tide like idiots. The tux had been a rental, and Danny’d had to use his cut of the job to pay for it - his first real grown-up suit, and it was all sandy. He kept it that way for weeks before he took it to the cleaners, too, because even then something about that night on the beach with Rusty, the way they’d shoved each other around and ended laying side by side in the sand had felt sacred.

Now here they are again. Rusty’s shoulder is tucked in against his side, and his hand is in between Danny’s legs somehow, but just resting on his knee.

Instead of untangling themselves, though, they both just lie there, catching their breath.

“Think these are the same stars as Atlantic City? It’s summer.”

“Different stuff in the Southern Hemisphere, though. Plus some of them have probably gone out in 30 years, Rus.”

“Oh God, don’t say it like that, you’ll remind me we’re old.”

Danny laughs at that, shifts a little in the sand, but only so he can scoot down and nudge his shoulder against Rusty’s. “Hey, Rus, I hate to break it to you, but we’re fucking old.”

Rusty groans, and he digs his elbow into Danny’s side. “Fine, old bastard, have it your way.”

“Better old than dead,” Danny says, before he can think better of it, but then he tenses before Rusty does, hyper-aware of what he’s done, and of the fact that he shouldn’t have brought it up. Rusty just stays there, quiet, looking up at the sky, so Danny pushes on. “Did you - did you really think I was? Ever?”

Rusty turns his head. “Did I really think Danny Ocean died in a car wreck? No. No, I didn’t.” Then, he reaches down and wraps his hand around Danny’s wrist, fingers pressed to the space right below Danny’s thumb - to his pulse. “On nights when I didn’t have a lead for a month, though, and I was just - holed up in some shit hotel room, staring at my phone, and thinking about it, did I think maybe somebody got to you after all? Yeah. Yeah, man, I did.”

“Rus-”

“I know, I know you’re sorry. It doesn’t change it, though.”

“No, I guess not.”

It reminds him, a little, of conversations he used to have with Tess. Only she’d scream and fight and he’d fight back, and one of them would leave to cool off, and he’d always tell her when she came back that he’d never do something again, even if he knew he would.

Rusty’s not going anywhere. And if Danny did promise to never do it again - he’d mean it.

“You don’t have to promise me you’re not gonna fake your own death again. Pretty sure you can only get away with it once.”

Danny snorts. “I really only did it to see if I could, anyways. I did it, now. Doing it again would be-”

“Boring and tacky, I agree. We never do the same thing twice.”

“Not since-”

“Belize. Only details-”

“Never the whole job.”

In a move he couldn’t even explain to himself, Danny shifts his hand in Rusty’s grip, and takes his hand properly. Links their fingers and everything, so they’re there in the sand actually holding hands, like two teenagers on their first date.

In retrospect, maybe this part happened in Atlantic City, too.

“You know, you kept that suit. From Atlantic City. It was still in your things,” Rusty tells him.

“It was my first suit,” is Danny’s first, defensive response. Then he really processes everything that implies and turns onto his side in the sand. “Tess made you go through my stuff?”

Rusty shrugs, as best he can while lying down. “I agreed because I thought I might find something. You were thorough.”

“Had to be. Not for - I just mean for her. And Debbie. Not-”

That, finally, makes Rusty sit up. He’s still looking down at Danny, though, nearly leaning over him, his face blocking Danny’s view of the stars. “So you’re not mad that I found you, but you couldn’t just tell me?”

Danny looks up at him, and he really, genuinely, doesn’t have a good answer. “I don’t know how to explain it. And I don’t think it’s one of those times you can just know what I’m thinking if even I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“No, you might be right on that one.”

Rusty stands up, completely, groaning as he does, and he uses his grip on Danny’s hand to pull him up, too.

They both let go, simultaneously, to try and dust themselves off while they walk back towards Danny’s place.

They walk close enough, though, that their elbows keep brushing.

“Don’t tell me that little shack is your place.”

“I always thought you’d call it a shack,” Danny replies, taking out his keys and unlocking the door. He holds it open and lets Rusty go inside first.

It is small, comparatively. Sort of like a little bungalow. It’s got a kitchenette instead of a full kitchen, a living room but no dining room, but he does have a separate room for his bed and a separate bathroom. He has air conditioning and indoor plumbing, so it could be worse.

“It could be worse,” Rusty agrees.

“The couch doesn’t really pull out, though.”

“I’ve slept on worse.”

“The sand in Atlantic City is a lot worse, you’re right.”

“Plus the floor in an overnight cell.”

“Fair enough,” Danny tells him with a shrug. 

He walks over to the sink and gets them each a glass of water, then after they both have some, they both get another drink - Rusty does a couple more shots of tequila, and this time, Danny joins him. 

“There a reason you keep doing that?” Danny asks, him, gesturing with the empty shot glass.

“There a reason you decided to join me?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Rusty smiles and shakes his head. “If we just keep drinking we’ll just get drunk.”

“I’m pretty close already.”

“I can tell.” He reaches out and pokes Danny in the chest, correcting him where he was starting to tilt forwards.

Shaking his head, Danny breaks out into a laugh, and Rusty chuckles with him, reaching out to steady him by the shoulders when he tilts forward again.

“I’m not - I’m not that drunk, I promise.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this drunk, actually, since - well I was going to be fun and say we were in our 20s, but now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you this drunk since-”

“Since the Incan matrimonial head masks. Yeah. Last time I was this drunk and having fun, though-”

“Chicago?”

“Chicago.”

“That was a good night,” Rusty says. Then, carefully, he moves one hand from Danny’s shoulder to the back of his neck, edging up into his hair. “You growing it out on purpose?”

Danny shakes his head, but slowly, so he doesn’t shake off Rusty’s touch. “No. I just can’t remember the last time I got a haircut. I’ve gotten one since I got here obviously, it hasn’t been a year, I just - I lose track of time. It’s kind of like-”

“Prison?” Rusty shoves him back a little at that, stops letting Danny hide his face and forces eye contact. “You were going to say prison. Danny, what are you doing?”

“Hiding?” Danny says, but it turns into a question halfway out of his mouth. “I just - there was nobody to tell but you, but I missed my chance. I- I thought I missed my chance. Figured you were pulling jobs or - settled down, I don’t know. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“I’m not the settling down type.” Then, Rusty brushes his finger over a curl right above Danny’s ear. “Not generally speaking. Not in the - classic white picket fence sense. But apparently you aren’t either. Apparently you’d rather die.”

“Apparently.”

“Couldn’t just divorce her again, huh, like a normal person?”

“You’ve certainly never accused me of being normal.”

Rusty’s hands move back down to his shoulders. “No. But I still didn’t think you’d fake your own death and move to a tiny island. Not even because of Tess.”

“It wasn’t really because of Tess. It was because-” Danny’s not even sure yet what he’s going to say, but he waits anyways, to see if Rusty can say it for him. When he doesn’t, Danny sighs, stands up straight, and pushes his hair back off his face. “I was stuck in this cycle. We’d do a job, I’d have fun, and I’d feel like my only options were another job, something bigger and better to keep everyone interested, or trying to go home. So I tried to go home, it wouldn’t work, I’d try another job, and there was nowhere to go from there. I guess it was less like a cycle and more like a - pendulum. Back and forth and I couldn’t - settle. Anywhere. When I was working I felt like I should go home, when I was at home I was itching to work so I just - took myself out of it. All of it.” He stands there, after all the words have spilled out, the whole speech totally unpracticed, and he tilts a little towards Rusty again - but Rusty doesn’t reach out and catch him. Danny puts a hand on the counter and rights himself.

“So you - wanted out of all of it.”

Rusty’s angry. Wrong answer.

“No, not - I wanted out of the choice. I wanted -” Rusty’s still closed off. He’s halfway to turning around, Danny can tell, and if he makes it out the door he won’t come back. “I knew what I wanted and I didn’t know how to get it.”

That stops him in his tracks.

“For once in my life there wasn’t - there wasn’t a scheme or a plan or a job, there was just me. And I could leave Tess but it wouldn’t solve all my other problems, so instead I just ran. And I wanted to take you with me, but I didn’t know how to ask and - I didn’t know what I would do if you said no.”

“When have I ever said no to you?” Rusty asks, taking a slow step back towards Danny, though his arms are still crossed.

“A few times. When it came to Tess.” Danny reaches out, his hand unsteady, and touches Rusty’s elbow, just gently.

Finally, Rusty uncrosses his arms and steps back into Danny’s space. “For obvious reasons,” he mutters.

“They weren’t obvious to me. Not back then. I just thought you didn’t like her.”

“It wasn’t her. It could have been anybody. I just knew it wouldn’t end well.”

“You were always smarter than me,” Danny tells him, reaching up and tugging gently at the sleeve of Rusty’s ugly Hawaiian shirt.

Rusty laughs, and tilts his head forward. He doesn’t quite touch their foreheads together, but they’re ducked together so close that Danny can feel his body heat. “I’m not. You don’t have to flatter me.”

“You found me, didn’t you? I didn’t even leave clues on purpose. You outsmarted me.”

“I do like the sound of that,” Rusty says. They’re both speaking quietly now, like they’re trading secrets. Like anyone in a five thousand mile radius even cares or knows who they are. They don’t.

Danny reaches out and places his hands on Rusty’s arms, slides them from his elbows up to his biceps, edges up under his sleeves. “See? I can be nice. You should stay a while.”

“You gonna make me sleep on the couch?”

“Only if you want to.”

Rusty pulls back, then, just a little, and sighs. “You’re still drunk.”

“You’re only saying that because I smell like tequila.”

“I like the smell of tequila.” He pauses, then shakes his head. “I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Though he resists the urge to groan, Danny nods, and squeezes gently at Rusty’s arms. “Alright. Fair enough.”

“Or maybe I should make you sleep on the couch. I’m still a little mad.”

“I’ll do it if you want me to.”

Rusty raises an eyebrow.

“Alright, I’ll sleep on the couch. You take the bed.”

Without really a word or a warning, Rusty leans forward and presses their lips together. It’s brief, but it’s not really a surprise, so Danny stays loose and tries to kiss back, and leans forward a little, chasing Rusty’s lips as he pulls away.

“We should go to bed,” Rusty says.

“And you’ll still be here in the morning?” Danny asks.

“Sure. Will you?”

“Oh I’m not leaving now.”

Rusty brushes his hand once against the back of Danny’s neck, and then walks away. “Goodnight, Danny.”

“Goodnight!” he calls back.

He hears the bedroom door shut, just quietly, and then he goes and lays down on the couch.

His clothes are still all sandy. He isn’t even wearing pajamas. He may be drunk, but he’s not drunk enough to fall asleep when he’s eight kinds of uncomfortable.

He goes back to his bedroom and knocks on the door.

Rusty opens it in his underwear, with the Hawaiian shirt still on but all the way unbuttoned. Danny blinks at him.

“I-”

“Forgot your pajamas. Here.” Rusty hands him some sleep pants and grins, then closes the door again.

Dazed, Danny wanders to the shower. Somehow he makes it from there, into his pajama pants, and back to the couch. He could not possibly answer any questions about how he did any of that or what he thought about while he did it - and practically as soon as his head hits the armrest, he falls asleep.

In the morning, he wakes up to sounds in the kitchenette - and he sits up, groggy, his memories still just coming back in flashes - but there’s Rusty Ryan, standing in his kitchen. He’s wearing one of Danny’s button downs and a pair of his boxers.

For one, long, moment, Danny just sits there and stares at him. Then, slowly, he stands up, and walks up behind Rusty.

When Rusty doesn’t stop him, Danny steps closer, wraps his arms around Rusty’s waist, and presses his face against his shoulder, just resting there.

“You feeling hungover?” Rusty asks.

“Not that bad, comparatively.”

“Yeah, me neither. I guess we must not be too old after all.”

Danny presses one hand against Rusty’s stomach and finds that he has the shirt unbuttoned all down the front - and he enjoys the moment of skin to skin contact, running his hand up to Rusty’s chest and resting it right over his heart. “I guess not,” he answers just a minute too late.

“Is this what you had in mind?” Rusty asks.

Humming, Danny hooks his chin over Rusty’s shoulder properly, and sighs. “We could still work sometimes. If you wanted to. Smaller jobs. The kind of stuff we did starting out. And we could move, if you wanted to. I’m not that attached to this place.”

Rusty places his hand on top of Danny’s. “Okay.”

For a minute or two, they stand there like that, and then Danny takes Rusty by the shoulders, and turns him around. “C’mere.”

Easily, Rusty turns, and he smiles. “What, did you want something?”

Danny doesn’t bother to respond with words. Instead, he puts his hand on the back of Rusty’s neck and pulls him into a kiss. He lingers this time, and Rusty lets him, both of them just standing there, kissing indulgently, long, searching kisses where they break apart for air and then just lean right back in.

Eventually, Rusty nudges his nose against Danny’s and laughs. “You fake your own death for all this?”

“Yeah, actually. Suddenly it seems like maybe it was worth it.”

“Remind me to tell you all the better ways we could have gotten here sometime.”

“Yeah, sure, tell me all about it.”

But first - Danny leans back in, and kisses him again. And again.

They have a lot of lost time to make up for.

**Author's Note:**

> i literally just. rewatched ocean's eleven today and then sat down and this came. tumbling out. so i hope it was enjoyable. thanks for reading if you did! feel free to let me know what you thought.


End file.
